This is something i have been thinking about a lot, and kinda is a serious thought i had, that some would see as crazy! but hear me out, as i feel it contextualizes their weirdness about the monk.
I think there is a chance that they view the monk is a little overtuned, mainly because...well with enough Ki...what cant it do compared to other martials?
No seriously with Ki, they can basically get an extra action to attack as much as a fighter, dodge as a bonus action which increases their defensives by quite a bit, do everything a rogue can do except maybe hide, and on top of this all of the other stuff from subclasses such as casting spells such as darkness and more if your a four elements monk.
This class can do everything every martial can do as a bonus action for the cost of 1 point of a resource they can actively recover, in which we know that in their own words, they balance classes in encounters assuming they are at their
best.
Now some people may look at this and say, well their damage then! it sucks, its dpr is too low.
And this is true to extent, but what if we go into another perspective we know they have,
Virtual damage! We know they value conditions seemingly as "virtual" damage, stuff that counts as basically doing extra damage due to the power of the effect on hit. And monk has a lot of on hit effects, even the basic monk Open Hand, on hit can immediately proc one of these effects, such as knocking prone(which is strong because in melee it just guarantees advantage for the rest of the attacks a big DPR boon, hence the nerf in 1DnD), among other things.
This goes into Stunning Strike, which for 1 ki gives a chance to stun a target. How much is this worth in virtual damage? Well its hard to gauge, not many spells do this condition, but it can be that much lower then Paralyze which they seem to value around a second level spell, and it cant be worst then a 1st-level spell. So pretty powerful all things consdiered, on average that about 13-14ish "Virtual damage" possibly. And also something they can actively proc with every hit. That is a lot of virtual damage, all things considered.
Some people like to underestimate the power of this ability, I feel it is geniunely overpowered. Some might balk at this idea, but thats because Monk is considered a weak class. But Monk being a weak class and Stunning Strike being an overpowered ability are not mutually exclusive.
But pair this feature which they value as virtual damage, and real "nova" power here, which they value in
balancing their game. And we again, know they balance the game around characters at their best, not after X amount of encounters, but assuming that this monk is at their best and using all of its features and ki as much as it can...
From that perspective, what can monk not do that every other martial cant do? It must be seen as some super jack of all trades class, that for 1 ki can do things other classes can do, while also being a stun machine in exchange for damage. Its only real weakness is defenses from that perspective. Even then, with dodge and its mobility to run away and basically kite almost anything, that can be worked around.
And i think, is what im arguing here. WoTC's perspective on it is probably not far from this, hence why they are very careful with any buffs or changes the Monk recieves. Because its not about the resource, they probably see that as super easy to get back and recovery, and they assume it is walking into any serious fight at their best or close too it, while also being able to do all of this. And from that perspective Monk would be seen as more a bit overtuned, as this weird martial that for 1 Ki point, can do almost anything a martial can, with Ki being its only limit in a encounter.
TLDR. WotC might view the Monk as a bit overtuned, looking at the knowledge we know from their perspective on how they balance the game around classes at their best, virtual damage, and what they have said about how they value these bonus actions to do things that would normally be a action, as basically a extra whole action basically. From their perspective(not saying they are right), they may view the monk as quite a bit stronger then what we see it as. As with Ki points, a recoverable resource which they made easier to recovery, they can basically do whatever every other martial can do and more(except maybe barb) with Ki being their only real limitation.
